[CLOSED] AND YOU'LL KNOW THE NEXT TIME I WAKE UP SCREAMING

[illithidnapped]

WHO: Astarion, Fenris, Bastien, Emet-Selch, Mobius, Ellie, Dante, Loki
WHAT: fear spirits are no joke when you're a bag of broken glass
WHEN: backdated to Crossroads plot hours
WHERE: the Crossroads
NOTES: so many content warnings: mind control, slavery, torture, blood, mutilation and abuse of every conceivable/literal shade, possibly more warnings to be added later, not joking this is a very horrible space. There's a reason why I'm divorcing this from the main log; Astarion's canon is, in short, unkind.

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[cozen]

Bastien brought a book, because of course he did. But Astarion's quiet little outburst doesn't interrupt him in the middle of a cliffside sword fight or astounding revelation of noble parentage. He's spent the last several minutes, maybe the last half hour, staring at a single woodcut illustration of a ship at sea, whose lines are more solid and soothing than the sky overhead, and trying to stop feeling his pulse in his head.

He raises his eyes over the top of the book. Weighs you're welcome to come along against the tone in which it was said and both against the possibility that Astarion will wander into trouble alone, die, and leave Bastien to feel a bit guilty for the rest of his life, or at least whenever he's reminded of it.

"D'accord," comes in a patiently mild-mannered drawl. If Astarion hasn't spent enough time around Orlesians to know the meaning, the fact that Bastien rolls up onto his feet should do the trick. He tucks the book under his arm; it's coming along. A few seconds of adjusting this and that in preparation, and he adds, "Aimless walks should be called twiddling your feet, don't you think?"

[illithidnapped]

“More like sticking your foot up your ass— if we’re combining sayings and their intended meanings.”

A terrible joke, dry and acrid in its delivery, but— look, he’s tired. He’s cranky. His head hurts. Freedom was supposed to be bliss, but right now he’s as miserable as a mabari in an ocean of fleas.

Already moving towards one of the shaded undersides of the cliff-like ruins they’ve sheltered underneath, Astarion somehow finds it in him to keep his footsteps slow enough that Bastien has ample time to catch up.

“The sooner we get out of all this light, the better.” Muttered without a second thought, of course, only to add (once he hears the droning sound of his own voice):

“Ugh. Never thought I’d be saying that.”

[cozen]

The joke is terrible, but it still earns a stuttering-exhale of a laugh while Bastien lopes to catch up and fall in alongside him. (Aside from the inherent challenge of moving anywhere in the Crossroads, as a human or—whatever Astarion is—it's not a problem. They're the same height, and his 5'9" is built from the legs of someone 5'11" and the torso of someone 5'7".)

"Really?"

He gives Astarion an evaluative look, at the expense of half-tripping over a jagged piece of rock. After that he keeps his eyes on the path.

"But you are so pale."

[illithidnapped]

“Oh aren’t you cute.” Astarion snorts back wryly, lips twisting just so.

“Believe me, an eternity in sunlight wouldn’t do me any good anyway.”

Which is a pity. He does adore it.

There’s an offer that comes from it, though. The sound of not-quite-stumbling footsteps: one arm held out, outstretched and patiently passive as they stride into stony passageways filled with darker points of lightlessness— the stonework of ruins giving way to tunnel walls, sloping downwards at steeper angles.

Curious, actually, compared to the rest of the Crossroads landscape.

“You don’t think this place could be rife with Venatori, do you.”